If you think Mormonism is retarded, why you think the Bible is any different?

[The Minsky Moment]

Sounds like very special pleading to me - there are plenty of examples of theological debate over how literlaly the bible should be taken. Just look at the Protestant reformation era - they were going hammer and tongs at biblical literalism.

No so.  This has already been discussed back-and-forth with Viking, but the sola scriptura of the Reformation era is quite different from the fundamentalist literalism of today.  The Reformers were claiming that every truth about Christ could be found in Scripture and that no extra-Sciptural source was required; but they did not claim that Scripture must or should be read using a word-for-word literalism devoid of any outside interpretive principles; indeed that kind of textual reading would have been incoherent to them.

[CountDeMoney]

This thread has just the right level of european doucheness to make it enjoyable.

4/5.

Most definitely.  Chock full of heady European douchebaggy goodness.

[The Brain]

I worship Odin.

[The Minsky Moment]

For a understanding of at least one form of Protestant "literalism", here is a selection from Luther's preface to collected works in Latin:

I had conceived a burning desire to understand what Paul meant in his Letter to the Romans, but thus far there had stood in my way . . . that one word which is in chapter one: "The justice of God is revealed in it." I hated that word, "justice of God," which, by the use and custom of all my teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically as referring to formal or active justice, as they call it, i.e., that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners and the unjust.

But  . . . I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners . . . I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God. I said . . ."Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?"  . . . I constantly badgered St. Paul about that spot in Romans 1 and anxiously wanted to know what he meant.

I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. I began to understand that this verse means that the justice of God is revealed through the Gospel, but it is a passive justice, i.e. that by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written: "The just person lives by faith." All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise . . . Immediately I saw the whole of Scripture in a different light. I ran through the Scriptures from memory and found that other terms had analogous meanings . . ."

Luther is describing here his most basic and fudamental theological conviction and the key to his understanding of Scripture.

And what is interesting is he is describing a process by which when confronted with a literal meaning of a key passage, he struggles with and rejects that meaning because it is at odds with his own deeply felt conviction, and then adopts a radically different reading.  Luther is talking about Romans 1:17, which speaks of God's "righteousness" or "justice" being revealed in the Gospel.  The immediately preceding verse speaks of the power of God bringing salvation to all those who believe in.  The next 15 verses - the rest of the chapter - consist of a long desciption of God's wrath against the sinfulness of men, and then cites again the term "God's righteous (or just) decree" that those who sin deserve death.

So the plain reading in context is that God's "righteousness" refers to God's character as a stern judge who punishes the wicked but brings salvation to those who believe in his power.  But Luther not only rejects this reading, he uses that rejection as a kind of decoder ring to transform his understanding of the entire Biblical text.  And the trigger for his rejection is not a philological breakthrough but the unbending resistance of his own moral and ethical intuition which is at odds with the text itself.

[The Brain]

badger badger badger?

[Ed Anger]

This thread has just the right level of european doucheness to make it enjoyable.

4/5.

Most definitely.  Chock full of heady European douchebaggy goodness.

Even better, the douche comes from a guy that worships beets.

[crazy canuck]

One difference is nobody claimed Clovis is God.

Actually it is quite likely that somebody made such a claim or something like it since pre-Christian kings and warlords often made claims of divine powers or provenance.  Indeed, one of the early chronicles claims that Clovis's great-grandfather was a sea divinity (or alteratively some kind of aquatic dragon).

Of course we have no way of knowing what others said about Clovis or what he said about himself unless Gregory of Tours chose to write it down.

You cant really have it both ways JR.  Your original point was that there was only one text regarding Clovis (which does not claim he is God) compared to the mutiple texts regarding Jesus (Some of which do claim Jesus is God). 

Lets stick to that known source rather than what someone might have said about Clovis that we dont know about. 

Also there is a fundamental difference between kings attempting to ground their geneology in some mystical past and making a claim that someone is God.

[Viking]

No. Well, first of all, there is no capital "T" truth. But, before I decent into post-modern relativism... There are lower case "t" truths out there. These truths are testable and verified by other independent sources. Lower case "t" truths have consequences and can be tested for veracity.

Historical facts are not testable - there is no way to go back in time to verify.  We are stuck with texts - archaeology can help a little bit but only rarely can it be conclusive.  Mostly historians are stuck reading and interepreting texts, and your criticism of that methodology applies with equal force.

Concretely, the task of understanding facts about the life and deeds of Jesus is no different than understanding the facts about the life and deeds of say, Clovis I.   Pretty much everything we think we know about Clovis' life derives from a single narrative, written down decades after Clovis' death by a religious leader who is generally assumed to have written with a very particular agenda.  Comparatively speaking, the sourcing for Jesus is far more robust because at least there we have multiple accounts from multiple authors to compare.  So why should we treat statements about Jesus as mere superstitious mythology while statements about Clovis' life are considered legitimate historical inquiry?

First of all historical facts are testable. By that I don't just mean experimental archeology. We do find some of the pharos named in the bible in the egyptian kings lists, we also find information about the assyrian empire in the bible confirmed by archeolgy ect.ect. Schlieman tested his theory about the location of Troy and hit the jackpot. We know a large battle happened in germany at the time reported by the romans of the teutoberger wald battle in part by finding topical roman military artifacts spread over an area consistent with the description in the roman sources. We can check the fact in the anglo saxon chronicle by going to places and seeing the churches, cathedrals and monastaries the chronicle claimed had been built etc.

Both Clovis and Jesus are legitimate targets of historical inquiry. The primary difference, however, is the consequence of this knowledge. Whether Socrates existed or not changes my life not a bit, whether Jesus existed or not can have significant consequences because of the claims made about him. This is Dawkins central thesis: The existence of God is a scientific question. There are things we can say about the world and the religious doctrines of the world that have material consequences. e.g. The efficacy of Prayer, the presence of ape and pig DNA in Jews etc.etc.

However, with the epistimology bit, we can never really know anything since we get all knowledge vicariously either through potentially misleading senses or equally potentially misleading witnesses. We can, however, work to confirm and disconfirm presumed truths by studying them and testing them for veracity.

[The Minsky Moment]

You cant really have it both ways JR.  Your original point was that there was only one text regarding Clovis (which does not claim he is God) compared to the mutiple texts regarding Jesus (Some of which do claim Jesus is God). 

Lets stick to that known source rather than what someone might have said about Clovis that we dont know about. 

???
My original point is just that our understanding of the past is primarily through interpreting texts, and thus Viking's claims about the inherent flaws in interpreting texts sweeps far broader then his intended target.  That's really it.

[CountDeMoney]

Minsky would've made a great Jesuit.  Too bad his tribe had the Big Guy killed.

[crazy canuck]

You cant really have it both ways JR.  Your original point was that there was only one text regarding Clovis (which does not claim he is God) compared to the mutiple texts regarding Jesus (Some of which do claim Jesus is God). 

Lets stick to that known source rather than what someone might have said about Clovis that we dont know about. 

???
My original point is just that our understanding of the past is primarily through interpreting texts, and thus Viking's claims about the inherent flaws in interpreting texts sweeps far broader then his intended target.  That's really it.

This is your post I am referring to

Concretely, the task of understanding facts about the life and deeds of Jesus is no different than understanding the facts about the life and deeds of say, Clovis I.   Pretty much everything we think we know about Clovis' life derives from a single narrative, written down decades after Clovis' death by a religious leader who is generally assumed to have written with a very particular agenda.  Comparatively speaking, the sourcing for Jesus is far more robust because at least there we have multiple accounts from multiple authors to compare.  So why should we treat statements about Jesus as mere superstitious mythology while statements about Clovis' life are considered legitimate historical inquiry?

I edited it down and responded to the last sentence.  The statements about Jesus are in realm of mythology because some of those statements claim he is a God.  Not such claim was made about Clovis in the single narrative you refer to.

That is the fundamental difference.  No one really cares what was said about Clovis.  What was said about Jesus has had a profound impact and continues to do so.  For that reason alone it deserves a higher level of scrutiny.

[The Minsky Moment]

First of all historical facts are testable. By that I don't just mean experimental archeology. We do find some of the pharos named in the bible in the egyptian kings lists, we also find information about the assyrian empire in the bible confirmed by archeolgy ect.ect. Schlieman tested his theory about the location of Troy and hit the jackpot. We know a large battle happened in germany at the time reported by the romans of the teutoberger wald battle in part by finding topical roman military artifacts spread over an area consistent with the description in the roman sources. We can check the fact in the anglo saxon chronicle by going to places and seeing the churches, cathedrals and monastaries the chronicle claimed had been built etc.

Let's go through those one by one:
1) Pharaohs - the king lists prove nothing because they predate the Bible. Some of the authors of the Bible may have been familiar with the King lists -- ancient Palestine was within the Egyptian sphere of influence at the time of Josiah -  and then plugged the names in.  Thus, the king lists don't confirm the truth of the kings mentioned in the Bible or vis-a-versa
2) I've had this argument before with Malthus, but all Schlieman's find proved is that there was a large settlement on the coast of Asia minor during the late Bronze Age (no surprise) and that historical memory of the existence of such a settlement and its location survived into the Homerica era.  That is pretty convincing proof of some kind of meaningful interaction between the "Greeks" and that settlement but nothing more.  It certainly doesn't prove the existence of any of the characters of the Iliad or of the narrative, which remains legendary.
3) Teutoberger Wald - I believe dozens of places have claimed to be the battle site.  Kalkriese is the new favorite because Roman coins and artifacts (including military equipment) have been found there but that doesn't prove a battle took place on that site - much less THE battle.
4) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - what structures are being referred to?  The fact that a chronicle may correctly note the existence of a structure doesn't mean it has accurate information to convey about who built it, why, etc.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is full of material that appears to be legendary and unreliable.

Texts are slippery things and archaeology is ambiguous - so what we call historical "facts" are really vague estimates of possibilities and probabilities about the past.

Both Clovis and Jesus are legitimate targets of historical inquiry. The primary difference, however, is the consequence of this knowledge. Whether Socrates existed or not changes my life not a bit, whether Jesus existed or not can have significant consequences because of the claims made about him.

Why would they have consequences for you, as a non-believer?

This is Dawkins central thesis: The existence of God is a scientific question.

That's a foolish thesis for an athesit since no scientific experiement I am aware of has disproved the existence of God.

[The Minsky Moment]

Minsky would've made a great Jesuit.  Too bad his tribe had the Big Guy killed.

I give the Jesuits props.  Not to mention they take the heat off the Elders .

[Viking]

First of all historical facts are testable. By that I don't just mean experimental archeology. We do find some of the pharos named in the bible in the egyptian kings lists, we also find information about the assyrian empire in the bible confirmed by archeolgy ect.ect. Schlieman tested his theory about the location of Troy and hit the jackpot. We know a large battle happened in germany at the time reported by the romans of the teutoberger wald battle in part by finding topical roman military artifacts spread over an area consistent with the description in the roman sources. We can check the fact in the anglo saxon chronicle by going to places and seeing the churches, cathedrals and monastaries the chronicle claimed had been built etc.

Let's go through those one by one:
1) Pharaohs - the king lists prove nothing because they predate the Bible. Some of the authors of the Bible may have been familiar with the King lists -- ancient Palestine was within the Egyptian sphere of influence at the time of Josiah -  and then plugged the names in.  Thus, the king lists don't confirm the truth of the kings mentioned in the Bible or vis-a-versa

I was referring specifically to the Lybian Faroah who marched on Jerusalem and to Europeans was known by name long before Egyptology.

2) I've had this argument before with Malthus, but all Schlieman's find proved is that there was a large settlement on the coast of Asia minor during the late Bronze Age (no surprise) and that historical memory of the existence of such a settlement and its location survived into the Homerica era.  That is pretty convincing proof of some kind of meaningful interaction between the "Greeks" and that settlement but nothing more.  It certainly doesn't prove the existence of any of the characters of the Iliad or of the narrative, which remains legendary.

Schlieman had a hypothesis, tested it and confirmed it (well, it was confirmed over time by generations of archeologists digging at the Schlieman site). This is specifically the kind of testable fact of history I was referring to.

3) Teutoberger Wald - I believe dozens of places have claimed to be the battle site.  Kalkriese is the new favorite because Roman coins and artifacts (including military equipment) have been found there but that doesn't prove a battle took place on that site - much less THE battle.

Which is why I don't say the site is Teutoberger Wald, I say the site is consistent with Teutoberger Wald. It is one of multiple confirming sources that at least one large battle including a large roman army happened in that general region. We have multiple roman sources discussing the battle and now we have potential archeological evidence for it. The same actually applies to Bosworth Field, nobody is sure where the battle happened, but there is a site in the general area where all the detrius one would expect from bosworth field is to be found.

These are the small "t" truths I was referring to. We can never be sure, but we can have tentative knowledge. 

4) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - what structures are being referred to?  The fact that a chronicle may correctly note the existence of a structure doesn't mean it has accurate information to convey about who built it, why, etc.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is full of material that appears to be legendary and unreliable.

Texts are slippery things and archaeology is ambiguous - so what we call historical "facts" are really vague estimates of possibilities and probabilities about the past.

Thats the point. We know that specific lines in the chronicle are correct when we see a reference to a building being built at a certain place and then at that place there is a building of the type described built in the manner to be expected at the time the chronicle states that it is built.

Both Clovis and Jesus are legitimate targets of historical inquiry. The primary difference, however, is the consequence of this knowledge. Whether Socrates existed or not changes my life not a bit, whether Jesus existed or not can have significant consequences because of the claims made about him.

Why would they have consequences for you, as a non-believer?

Why not? It certainly will effect the behavior of all the theists around me in society.

This is Dawkins central thesis: The existence of God is a scientific question.

That's a foolish thesis for an athesit since no scientific experiement I am aware of has disproved the existence of God.

Al Gazali's 4th point in the Incoherence of the Philosophers is

The inability of philosophers to prove the existence of the Creator.

Just think how far we have come. We have been chasing god from all the gaps he has inhabited for millennia. This is why religion today has been made content free and just about feeling and inspiring. That is pretty much the only left that we can't test.

The reason no scientific experiment presently can test this is that every time a test becomes available the definition of the nature of god is changed. This is why the nebulous diffuse definitions of god are annoying because everything that has been said about god has been proven wrong or untrue, now virtually nothing concrete or specific is said about him. He used to throw thunderbolts, cause earthquakes, cause weather and floods and cause plagues in egypt and cause animals and relatives to die. He doesn't do that anymore since we now know why these things happen.

[The Minsky Moment]

(1) I was referring specifically to the Lybian Faroah who marched on Jerusalem and to Europeans was known by name long before Egyptology.
(2) Schlieman had a hypothesis, tested it and confirmed it (well, it was confirmed over time by generations of archeologists digging at the Schlieman site). This is specifically the kind of testable fact of history I was referring to.
(3) Which is why I don't say the site is Teutoberger Wald, I say the site is consistent with Teutoberger Wald. It is one of multiple confirming sources that at least one large battle including a large roman army happened in that general region. We have multiple roman sources discussing the battle and now we have potential archeological evidence for it.

(1) If you mean Necho, the king list is likely far from the best source but the problem remains - are these sources really verifications of things in the Biblical text, or did the Bible just parrot one or more of these sources.
(2)  Schliemann was wrong about lots of things.  He picked a bunch of "wrong" sites before being steered to Hisarlik.  He chose Hisarlik because someone else had already started some excavation there and had found some artifacts.  He fit his hypothesis about the location to what he had been told about the site and its potential availability to dig.  "Priam's Treasure" was found in the wrong layer; in fact Schliemann's entire stratification chronology was messed up because he was so intent on shoehorning the mythical account into his find.  Schlieman's hypothesis was that the Iliad was an accurate account of a real war, and that hypothesis was not confirmed and still isn't. 
All we really know is that there is an ancient city on that site and that one of the destruction layers roughly coincides with the Homeric timeline (although the cause of the destruction cannot be confirmed and the timing coincides with the destruction of many other settlements around the same time).
(3) The archaeology really just tells us that there was a likely Roman presence near the region since such a large conglomeration of artifacts probably wouldn't have been assembled through long-distance trade alone.  How and why they got there cannot really be known.  Our knowledge about the battle really relies on the textual sources.

Just think how far we have come. We have been chasing god from all the gaps he has inhabited for millennia. This is why religion today has been made content free and just about feeling and inspiring. That is pretty much the only left that we can't test.

The reason no scientific experiment presently can test this is that every time a test becomes available the definition of the nature of god is changed.

This is a strawman.  There is no retreating god of gaps except in Dawkins' dogma.  The problem as it exists now was presented full and foresquare from the very beginning because Aristotlean science (whatever its deficiencies) claimed to be a comprehensive explanation of nature that left very little space indeed for a deity.  Dawkins' 21st century god of the gaps is no different or less ambitious in any material way than the God of Aquinas or Maimonides.

The shift to a Baconian paradigm only made the apologists task easier because science then modestly renounced all propositional ipse dixits and adopted the experimental method as its lodestar.  One price of that paradigm is to have to acknowledge that claims about God cannot be adjudicated by that method, and thus science really has nothing to say about such claims.